THE

MAHATMA LETTERSTo A. P. SINNETT

from the MAHATMAS M. & K.H.Transcribed and Compiled by A: T. BARKER IN CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE

Arranged and Edited by Vicente Hao Chin, Jr.

THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING HOUSEAdyar. Chennai 600 020. India Wheaton. IL. USA

Copyright 1998 by Theosophical Publishing House ISBN 81-7059-272-0 (Hard Cover) ISBN 81-7059-273-9 (Soft Cover) Published with permission from Theosophical Publishing House 1 Iba Street, Quezon City, Philippines Printed at the Vasanta Press . The Theosophical Society Adyar, Chennai 600 020, India

ForewordIt is a privilege and an honor to write this Foreword to a book which seems to me a significant addition to the publishing history of The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, one of the most important volumes in theosophical literature. First of all, a tribute must be paid to Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., President of the Theosophical Society in the Philippines, "for his initiative, determination, and the enormous amount of work he has done in making the volume available. My contribution to this new edition of the Letters consists of Notes compiled while I was conducting several terms of study in the subject at the Krotona School of Theosophy in Ojai, California. These courses completed, it occurred to me that it might be helpful in promoting a wider study of the Letters if my class Notes were put in more readable form and copies sent to several of the major theosophical libraries. This was done. Among those who received a copy was Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., who immediately felt that they should be published for a still wider distribution. At the same time, he was considering the possibility of publishing the Letters in chronological order, rather than under the topical headings as used in the three editions already available. Students of the Letters are deeply indebted to George E. Linton for the chronology which he developed from prolonged study of the original letters in the British Museum and which was used in the Readers' Guide to the Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett (George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, 2nd ed., 1988). Serious study has been made of a number of previously developed chronologies, but it is believed that this arrangement is as nearly accurate as it is possible to be. As every student of the Letters knows, they were seldom dated. A.P. Sinnett, to whom most of them were addressed, often noted the date of receipt, but even this was occasionally overlooked, and apparently dates were sometimes inserted after considerable time had elapsed. Sinnett commented that had it been apparent from the beginning that the correspondence would develop as it did, he would have kept more careful records. His wife, Patience Sinnett, kept a diary which ran into 37 volumes over the years, but unfortunately these volumes have disappeared. It has been speculated that they may have been destroyed in bombings during World War 1. The letters, themselves, however, have been kept safely in the British Museum under irrevocable deed. Steps have been taken to preserve them; also, George Linton has had them microfilmed and these films are on file

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in several places, including the headquarters of the American Section of the Theosophical Society. . A final word of appreciation to Vicente Hao Chin,Jr. is certainly in order. It seems not too much to hope that this edition will be the most widely used and studied in the years to come.VIRGINIA HANSON

Preface to the Chronological EditionI

The present edition was conceived to respond to a long-felt need of students of the Mahatma Letters arising from two difficulties: (1) The letters are hard to follow in the previous edjtions since the issues and events mentioned in the letters are not in their proper sequence. The significance of the Mahatmas' words on such issues is therefore often missed by the reader. (2) The reader is often left in the dark regarding the circumstances surrounding the letters, in addition to the fact that many names and references are obscure to the modern reader. As a result, relatively few theosophists have been encouraged to study the Mahatma Letters. This is a pity because this is one of the most important theosophical sourcebooks. The publication of the Reader's Guide to the Mahatma Letters by George Linton and Virginia Hanson has greatly helped in filling this gap. And we are grateful to both of them for their valuable efforts. Still, it is cumbersome to read the Mahatma Letters while constantly referring to one or two other books at the same time. Hence the need for a chronological edition with annotations. In this edition, the letters are numbered and arranged according to the probable dates of receipt. The original numbers are placed alongside the chronological number. Short annotations have also been added before each letter to acquaint the reader with the events and circumstances that surround the letter. These annotations were written by Virginia Hanson, who has devoted years of study of the Mahatma Letters, and who has written a number of books on the subject, primarily Masters and Men, the Reader's Guide to the Mahatma Letters (with George Linton), and Introduction to the Mahatma Letters. In 1986, after many years of handling classes on the Mahatma Letters, Mrs. Hanson collected her copious notes on the letters and bound them under the title "Notes on the Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett." The present editor discussed with her about the use of "Notes" in a chronological edition of the Mahatma Letters. She strongly supported the idea and gave permission to use any part of her "Notes" for this purpose. The new footnotes of this edition (identified by a "e-ED." at the end of each footnote) are also primarily based on the "Notes." Some of them are based on the Readers' Guide to the Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett compiled by George

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Linton and Virginia Hanson. The notes preceding the letters in the Appendices, however, were supplied by the present editor. The text of the letters in this edition follows that of the Third Edition of the Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett (edited by C. Humphreys and E. Benjamin), including the footnotes. No change has been made except obvious typographical errors (e.g., "kowledge" instead of "knowledge", "of couse" instead of "of course"). Other than these, this edition has faithfully retained all spellings and punctuations of the third edition. In this edition, the following text formats were adopted: (a) Letters not written by the Mahatmas are set in sans serif type to distinguish them from the Mahatma letters. In previous editions, same tYRes were used, which can sometimes cause confusion. (b) The Mahatmas occasionally underline certain words in letters written by others. These are similarly underlined in the present edition, instead of using bold italics as in previous editions. (c) The footnotes of the previous editions that refer to letter numbers, pages, or typestyles were corrected in this edition to conform with the revised format and pagination of the new edition. These corrections are always placed in brackets. New appendices have been added here to include all known letters or notes to A.P. Sinnett or A.a. Hume that were not included in the Mahatma Letters. These are: (a) the first letter of Mahatma K.H. to Hume, reprinted from Combined Chronology by Margaret Conger (Theosophical University Press, Pasadena); (b) letters found in Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, Series I, edited by C. Jinarajadasa (Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar), and (c) those found in Letters of H.P. Blavatsky to A.P. Sinnett, transcribed and compiled by A.T. Barker (Theosophical University Press, Pasadena).IIA BRIEF HISTORY OF THE PREVIOUS EDITIONS

After Mr. A.P. Sinnett died in 1921, his Executrix, Miss Maud Hoffman, arranged with Mr. A. Trevor Barker to edit and publish the Mahatma letters. This came out in December, 1923, followed by a revised edition in 1926. In his Preface, Mr. Barker stated: The reader must bear in mind that with only one or two exceptions none of the letters were dated by the writers thereof. On many of them, however, the dates and places of receipt have been noted in Mr. Sinnett's handwriting, and these appear in small type immediately under the Letter Numbers. It should be understood that unless otherwise stated: 1. Each letter has been transcribed direct from the original. 2. Every letter was written to A.P. Sinnett. 3. All footnotes are copies of notes which appear in and belong to the letters themselves, unless signed (Ed.) in which case they have been added by the compiler.

Preface to the Chronological Edition

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Mr. Barker writes further that lithe reader is asked to believe that the greatest care has been taken in the work of transcription; the whole MS. has been checked word for word with the originals, and everything possible done to prevent errors. It is however probably too much to expect that the printed book will contain no mistakes, they are almost inevitable." In 1962, a third edition was issued under the joint editorship of Christmas Humphreys and Elsie Benjamin. The third edition involved a meticulous review of the transcription of the previous editions. The edition benefited from the invaluable assistance of Mr. C. Jinarajadasa, the late President of the Theosophical Society, Mr. James Graham, and Mr. Boris de Zirkoff, compiler of the Collected Writings of H.P. Blavatsky. As the present edition is primarily based on the Third Edition, it is necessary to quote Mr. Humphreys and Ms. Benjamin regarding the basis of their transcription as contained in the Preface to that edition: The idea of transcribing the material exactly as it appeared was at once abandoned. One reason alone sufficed, that Trevor Barker had already made many corrections in spelling, punctuation and the like, and it was therefore decided to produce a book of the maximum value to students while remaining faithful to the thoughts behind the original. But voices have been loudly raised in the past about changes in later editions of the works of early Theosophical writers, and it is therefore important to be able to declare, as is now declared, (a) that in this Work no single word has been added, save in square brackets to make the sense clear; and (b) that no single word has been omitted save in a few cases where its presence was an obvious grammatical err